BJP snares NCP leader from Thane

Mumbai: A prominent Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader from the adjoining Thane district joined the BJP, which announced here on Tuesday, that some more leaders of the Sharad Pawar-led party would join it shortly.

Kapil Patil, who was the NCP Thane rural district unit president, was welcomed into the BJP here by its senior leader Gopinath Munde and Maharashtra unit president Devendra Fadnavis.
Patil told reporters that he left NCP since he felt that only an able leader like Narendra Modi could ensure development of his Bhiwandi Lok Sabha constituency.

Patil is likely to be the BJP candidate from Bhiwandi and a formal decision is expected tomorrow.

Answering a query about Maharshtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar`s warning to Medical Education Minister Vijaykumar Gavit, whose daughter, Heena Gavit, is likely to join the BJP, Munde said, "Joining any party and practising an ideology is a right given to people by the Constitution."
"There is no point exerting pressure on a father to prevent his daughter from joining any other party," Munde said.

"Even nephews don`t listen to uncles, as can be seen from mine and Balasaheb`s (Thackeray) case," Munde said, in an apparent reference to his nephew Dhananjay joining the NCP and the late Thackeray`s nephew Raj leaving the Shiv Sena and forming the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).

"Mind you, the same thing is going to happen in Sharad Pawar`s case," Munde said, implying that all may not be well between Ajit Pawar and his uncle, in future.